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It was great in Cinerama, but ...

... 2001 doesn't seem to hold up that well from my perspective. The problem I have viewing it now stems from "Space Odyssey" being trimmed down for widescreen or further compromised for DVD/TV viewing. IMHO, 2001's biggest flaw was that Kubrick filmed a bigger than life epic even though he didn't have an epic story to work with. So seeing this film reduced to mere WS dilutes it's one great strength: the "you are there" experience which only today's IMAX and 3D-IMAX achieve.

I saw 2001 in a Cinerama theater in Oklahoma Ciry back in '69. Generally speaking, it was impressive on several levels, not the least of which included the choice of classical music and Kubrick's brilliant transition scenes denoting vast changes in time and location. I was already in awe of the added depth produced when movies filmed in the Cinerama camera process were projected on 3 separate tightly synchronized screens (i.e., this was only my second such film, the first being "How the West was Won"), and the effects in 2001 A Space Odyssey were mind-blowing even for someone like myself who wasn't on mind altering chemicals at the time. :o)

However, in retrospect, considering the more sophisticated effects available to today's film-makers and the ambitious plots which occasionally make their way to the screen, 2001 seems painfully pedestrian, especially when shown utilizing a lesser widescreen format. Furthermore, there's a sleep-inducing infatuation with docking ships and slowly examining miniscule details of construction and everyday life in space that annoyingly slows the pacing in much the same way that "Star Trek - The Motionless Picture" would bore audiences a decade later.

That said, there is still a certain charm and grandeur to 2001 and the acting is effective in spite of the fact that most of the tension is generated by a space-suited Keir Dullea and the voice of a computer named Hal. Perhaps if I had been "chemically prepared" for the trippy kaleidoscope effects which transitioned from the Jupiter mission segment to the arrival, death and rebirth sequence both the transition and the movie would have been more compelling in hindsight. Alas, Space Odyssey, even with all it's grandeur, seemed somehow unresolved; more experience than story. In the final analysis, as a movie 2001 is noteworthy, groundbreaking and on some levels a classic, but as a Kubrick film it's just an okay entry IMO, easily surpassed by his next directoral effort which is also an SF genre film and a genuine masterpiece, "A Clockwork Orange."

AuPh

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